


Sticker stars

by breathingsentences



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics)
Genre: Emotional Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 09:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17444447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathingsentences/pseuds/breathingsentences
Summary: Damian Wayne is upset and has a brief, late-night talk with Titus.





	Sticker stars

**Author's Note:**

> My first time posting anything I write.
> 
> Please comment. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

It’s very late night when Damian sits down on his bed.

Patrol had been all right. A few low grade robbers, a couple drug dealers on the wrong corners, and Batman had called it a night. It had been like that for a week now, but he could feel something in the air, a strange tension, like some big creature just underneath the water surface, getting ready to make itself known. It makes him nervous and uneasy, weights him down with anxiety and anticipation.

The calm before the storm, like his father used to say. The thought makes his stomach clench. Father. It had been almost a year since he died. Almost a year since Dick became his Batman and he became Robin. A bittersweet exchange.

Damian pulls his legs up the bed and lays belly up on his rigid mattress, arms folded behind his head. He misses the desert’s stars every time he looks at his plaster ceiling. The tiny glow-in-the-dark star-shaped stickers Dick had got him last Christmas just makes him long for the open night sky even more. He wonders if they know he often naps at the roof by his window. He wonders if father had known.

His door opens a bit and the sound of soft and big paws on carpet announce Titus entrance. He goes straight to the bed and lies by the boy’s side, his head resting on his owner’s chest, and then sighs. Damian does just the same.

“Do you remember them, Titus? Do you miss your parents?” He asks in a whisper, and his only answer is the dog’s low snore. “Sometimes… I wish I did not remember them  
Mother and Father,” But he remembers.

He can still see vividly the way Thalia’s hair shine under the harsh orient sun, the way her long fingers briefly caressed his face when he defeated an opponent on the battlefield. He can still smell Bruce’s aftershave while having breakfast, as if he had just come down freshly showered. He feels his calloused hand over his shoulder, hears him talking lowly to Alfred in the kitchen. He can almost trick himself into believing Father is asleep on his bed at the very last door down the hall. But he can’t. They had so little time together, and Damian ached for his presence. A tear ran down his face and he wiped it quickly.

Mother would have hated it. She would be angry knowing how weak he had gotten since coming to Gotham. How pathetic and fragile her son had become simply by remembering a man who had failed and gotten himself killed. Another tear rolls, and this time Damian lets it.

She would have been right. He must have become weak and sentimental, because even the thought of her reprimand made him miss her even more.

He closes his eyes, rolls to his side. Titus' head is against his chest and he hugs him. “I wish I was like you,” he mumbled against the soft fur. He sniffs smelling the dog’s scent. 

Tomorrow he would be different. He would be Damian Al Ghul Wayne again. He’d go to school and on patrol, and he and Dick would be the best Batman and Robin ever to ever exist. 

But tonight he is just himself. A small boy missing his mom and dad.


End file.
